The Pill Protects Against Cancer

[The Straight Story]

Study: The Pill Protects Against Cancer


LONDON (AP) -- Women on the birth control pill are protected from ovarian cancer, even decades after they stop taking it, scientists said. British researchers found that women taking the pill for 15 years halved their chances of developing ovarian cancer, and that the risk remained low more than 30 years later, though protection weakened over time. The findings were published Friday in The Lancet.

"Not only does the pill prevent pregnancy, but in the long term, you actually get less cancer as well," said Valerie Beral, the study's lead author and director of the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit at Oxford University. "It's a nice bonus." The study was paid for by Cancer Research UK and Britain's Medical Research Council.

Beral and colleagues analyzed data from 45 studies worldwide, covering 23,257 women with ovarian cancer, of whom 31 percent were on the pill. They also looked at 87,303 women without ovarian cancer, of whom 37 percent were on the pill.

In both groups, the women on the pill took it for about five years. The researchers found that in rich countries, women taking oral contraceptives for a decade were less likely to develop ovarian cancer. Without the pill, about 12 women per 1,000 are expected to get ovarian cancer before age 75. But that figure dropped to 8 women per 1,000 in those on the pill.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OVARIAN_CANCER?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME

[xchrom]

1. well THIS isn't going to go over well in some circles.

[TlalocW]

2. Hasn't part of the anti-choice propaganda been to claim

That the pill causes all kinds of horrible things like cancer, or was that abortion?

TlalocW